What are some things that help me learn something I don't understand? Well, I usually just review whatever I did in class, or study. If I can't understand something, then you have to make sure of some things. You must make sure that you do your work in pencil and do it neatly. The work isn't helping you at all if you cannot understand it. You also must make sure that you number each and every problem that you work on, so you can refer back to the problem when you need to. If I ever need help with doing the homework, then I usually go to my teacher's class in the morning so I can get help from the teacher and/or classmates. These are just some helpful little things that I do so I make sure I understand each lesson that I learned in class.
When you are solving something such as an equation, you have to use division. But, when you think about it, why is there no such thing as division? Well, everyone knows that 'division' is just the inverse operation of multiplication. So, when you think about it, you are pretty much just multiplying, because division is just the reverse of it. This explains why there is no such thing as division, rather just multiplication. So, to sum it all up, there is no such thing as division when solving an equation because division is pretty much a reversed use of multiplication. For example, 2x=16. You must divide 2x by 2, and 16 as well. But, when you think of it, you are actually just doing an inverse way of multiplication.
Some people may or may not that there is an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1, or between any whole numbers for that matter? Why is this? Well, because of something known as decimals. Decimals are basically fractions, parts of a whole. Decimals have no limit to how large they grow, so they range from tenths to an infinite amount of numbers. For example, pi is considered a decimal. Pi starts off as 3.14 and it keeps on going, thus making there be an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1.
There is a bit of a weird feature to the diversions from fractions to decimals. As the bottom part of the fraction (denomenator) gets larger, the fraction is considered less. Why is this? Well, a fraction is considered a part of a whole, such as a pizza, a pie, or anything that is a whole thing. The denomenator represents how many parts that whole is cut into. So, when the denomenator is a large number, the whole is cut into more pieces. For example, say I have a pizza on my table, and the fraction that is represented is 2/8. So, the pizza is cut into 8 pieces. When you convert this to a decimal, it becomes less because you only get 2 of the 8 pieces from the pizza. It really depends how large both the top number (numerator) and the denomenator are. That 2/8 is now considered, as a decimal, .25 (1/4 equals 25/100 which equals .25). When there is a large difference from the numerator and the denomenator, that means there is more pieces of the pizza (whole) left then what you grabbed (numerator).
Today in pre-algebra we learned about rational numbers. Our teacher helped us learn this easier by giving some kind of formula. This method definitely worked for everyone. The least interesting part was pretty much learning the method, because at first it was kind of difficult. In my opinion, there actually wasn't much of an 'interesting part' considering math isn't intended to be fun. What I did in order to understand the concept was by paying attention and writing down what she had on the SMART board. What made it difficult is that this method/formula thing had a variable, and a bunch of numbers into a decimal. After a while, I realized it just takes more time but it isn't necessarily hard.
| Sebastian RThese blogs are about different things we learn each week in our math class. We do these every Monday. ArchivesJune 2013 Categories |
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